Many different types of equipment carriers exist that can be secured to the exterior of a vehicle. These carriers include various configurations with supports that are designed to hold the carrier on the vehicle, and to hold the equipment on the carrier. In many of these configurations, the equipment supports for the carrier can also be reconfigured into different positions such that the carrier can be adapted to hold different items of equipment. Further, the equipment supports and the vehicle-engaging supports can also be moved between a use configuration and a storage configuration in order to allow the carrier to be reconfigured to take up less room for storage than when in use.
However, regardless of the particular structure for the equipment carrier, existing carriers have different shortcomings that make these carriers less than optimal for use with regard to certain vehicles, or with certain types of equipment. Further, in order to reduce the weight of these types of carriers to increase the ease of use of the carrier, the lighter structure often times reduces the structural integrity of the carrier, such that the carrier can be more easily damaged, wears out more quickly or cannot hold the same amount of weight as other, heavier carriers.
Therefore, it is desirable to develop an equipment carrier that can be adjusted into various configurations, including a fully collapsed storage configuration, and which has a construction that enables use of components that provide a relatively light overall weight while maintaining a degree of structural integrity that allows the carrier to support relatively heavy loads.